Andi's 2nd white dress...

Andi is our only girl so a little splurge here or there is appropriate right?  Her big 8 birthday was coming up and I really wanted to have some great pictures for this special time in her life.  In January I paid $20 to rent the Riter Mansion to take pictures.  We would have taken them outside but true Cache Valley form the high of the day was 5 degrees.  The $20 was TOTALLY worth it!  It was beautiful inside.  Andrea was not in the best of moods, but she was a trooper anyway.  She gave me her mysterious little smile several times...I love that little smile and the beautiful little girl that owns it!

Let's just hope that 3rd white dress is a long, long ways off!

2012 wrap up

Yes I realize 2012 was over a while ago, but stick with me here.  Something is better then nothing right?

 

I had to start with this picture.  Andi LOVES to mow the lawn, and Mike loves to teach her to do things so it was a match made in heaven!

Nick was thrilled this year to be able to play soccer for the first time.  By the end of the season he was scoring goals quite regularly, but we still need to work on handling losing.

The highlight of the fall was definately the trip to Becky's in Washington.  We just love playing with her boys!  I love jsut chatting with my sis! This picture was our FHE.

 Our FHE treat was pudding monsters.  Isn't that green appetizing?

 We of course checked out some of the AWESOME parks they have there.

 One of the parks included a little fishing lake for kids.  Nick and Andi got to fish for the first time there!

 

This is Kyle's attempt at fishing.

We also got to throw rocks in the Columbia river.  I don't know what it is about throwing rocks, but it is one of the kids' favorite things to do there.

Of course we had to make sugar cookies and COVER them with candy to make sure the sugar rush would be epic.

Once back home we carved pumpkins with daddy.   This picture is important as this documents the first time Mike has gotten his hands slimy intentionally and for fun.  We are pretty sure this has never happened before.  As you can see he loved it.

Nick was a North Park Night and Andi was a Spider Countess for halloween.  Kyle was whatever we could get him to stay in for that moment.  He absolutely did not want his picture taken.

Sorry I guess I did not take pictures of Thanksgiving itself but we had a great time at the Moser's, and the food was AMAZING as usual! 

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went with Tyler, Lisa & Kylton up in the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree.  It was cold, and the hiking was a little difficult, but it was fun!

We made our annual trip down to see the lights at Temple Square, and we of course had a great time.  To start we rode Frontrunner in which I am pretty sure was the highlight for the kids.

Here we are with grandpa and grandma Sorenson.

The first week of December marked the start of working on the basement every weekend this winter and most of the evenings during the week.  This is my tired slave.  Mike and I did all the framing, and he is currently working on all the electrical.

Moving along to Christmas.  On Christmas eve we finally got a good snow storm.  They made this snow man earlier in the day, but by the evening the temperatures dropped and he froze in this leaning position.  Nick thought it made a great slide.

 

We did have Christopher the elf live with us the last two weeks of december.  The kids really liked it when he wrapped the fridge and wrote a note that they could not open it until they said something nice to each other.  He also toilet papered the tree, played with the toys, and got into the fridge to drink the milk where his backwash turned it green.

Christmas morning was great this year!  Finally all three kids were into unwrapping presents.  Kyle thought the tent we got was awesome.

Nick loved his Beyoblade set until he unwrapped the next present.

 Andi got a doll with real hair you can curl and everything.  She is still playing with it!

Puppies!

This month Andrea was pretty much in heaven.  My sister-in-law's English Bull dog had puppies!

 

They were adorable!  Nick was a little hesitant at first, but it didn't take long to warm up to them.

 

 

Andrea LOVED being around the puppies!  Future vet in training I think.

 Kyle was OK with the puppies as long as they kept their distance.  He did get startled a lot with four of them running around.

 

I think Monica should have a lot more puppies so we can visit and play with them, and then leave when we are ready to go ;)



Sorsenson Camp

Every year we try to have Sorenson Camp (well, this is our 2nd year).  Anyway our family was in charge this year and thanks to Sue, my brother's and Sister and thier spouces it was a success.  At least by my standards and if you exclude the weather issues.

 

Becky came up to visit us the day before so we spent some time hanging out first at my house...

 Then at Merlin Olsen park in the canal.  The kids worked hard to collect rocks in the stream.

 The kids all playing together in the river.

 Nick and the collection.

 For our reunion Aunt Sue rented a cotton candy maker and snow cone machine.  The kids LOVED it and it sure brought out some kid in many of  the adults!

 Later we got out a water balloon launcher and the kids/ kids at heart went to town. 

 Kyle actually took the balloon launching quite seriously.  This was the face he made after each time he launched a balloon.

Kyle launching a balloon.

 Daddy and Nick having fun together! 

To top it all off our grandma showed us her water balloon launching skills! 

We had a great time and just loved getting together with all our aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. 

Summer Fun

This summer has been crazy so in an attemp to catch up I am going to do some fast posting.  We had qutie a few things we wanted to do this summer and one was go hiking.  We had our friends the Perry's go with us again and we all had a great time...as long as we were not being attacked by mosquitos!

 Mike's sister had twin girls this summer so in an attempt to lighten her load for a weekend we took her older two kid to our house for a fun cousin sleepover.  We sure loved having them!  This will have to be an annual tradition.  We did tons of stuff but the highlights were going to the Willow park zoo and feeding the fish, playing at the park, and playing in the water at my Aunt Sue's house. 

 Remember the good old days of flating boats down the ditch?  Well these kids sure will!

Kyle had fun "helping" will filling up water balloons.

 This summer we also adopeted our first pets...fish.  This was a big step for the moser family, and we have only killed about 4 so far ;)

 For the 4th of July we had an impromptu neighborhood firework party.  The kids loved watching them and we only had one life threatening experience when one of the legal cake fireworks mis-fired and came out the side of the box right at the crowd of kids.  No one was hurt (the sparks were suprisingly cool), it just scared all of us to death!!!

The kids could not help but break into song they loved the fireworks so much.  I think they are ready for the Tab choir, don't you?

 True to form we had a few late afternoon thunderstormes so the kids made the most of it and played in the rain.  One of those moments I remember how fun it is to be a kid!

 My wonderful husband had yet another birthday (don't ask me how old he is, I don't even know how old I am!!!)  Nick picked out the beautiful cake for him...nice huh!  I sure love this guy.  The best husband/father we could ever ask for!

Kyle showing Mike how much he loves having him as a dad.